HOW TO BECOME A GEAR
TESTER IN THREE EASY STEPS
STEP 2, LESSON 2-A
WRITING THE REVIEW
INITIAL CONSIDERATIONS

First, you do NOT need to be an English
Major to write good reviews and reports. You don't even need to be an English Lieutenant.
You DO need to organize your report in a way that will be easy to follow,
and you should carefully edit your report for spelling, grammar, and
completeness. If you have trouble in any of these areas, help is
available to you, but we'll talk about that later - so don't worry.

The first thing to do is to select an
item to test. For your owner reviews, you should choose an item
that you have had significant experience with, and the best thing would
be your favorite piece of gear. You should have owned and used
the gear long enough to be able to comment on its durability. For the
review to be useful to other backpackers, it should still be available
in the stores. Avoid gear which has been off the market for more than a
year.

If you are a raw newbie, and you have no experience
at all, then you are actually in an ideal position to test gear.
Why? Because you don't have any preconceived notions or prejudices;
you just don't have any experience, and that's something that can easily
be fixed: Go backpacking. Other people just starting out as
backpackers will find your reviews valuable, because they don't have any
experience either. If the piece of gear that you review was easy for
you to use, it will probably be easy for them to use - and the converse is
also true. Of course, a lot of testing can occur right in your own
back yard, but you will want to have some actual trail experience with the
item. So, if you have no experience to speak of, read a few
reviews on BackpackGearTest, and talk to other backpackers about their
gear, then start buying some of your own. When you get a new piece
of gear, start writing your review right away. What is it like right
out of the box? Is it easy for you to figure out and use? What
are your expectations? Once you have acquired some experience with
the item, write a little more. Write about your actual experience
with the item, and how it performed for you. Once you have used it
for awhile, write down your final views on the item and submit your
review.

If you are an experienced
backpacker, then you probably know everything you need to know about all
your gear in order to write a good review. Just remember that the
item you pick to do your review about should relate to
backpacking. When in doubt as to whether or not the item is germane
to the subject, look for reviews on similar items. If you don't find
any, contact a moderator directly for approval before you write
your review.

So, have you selected your item? Well, if you
haven't, get busy! Below, we're going to give you an example of a basic
review. But to make the process easier, you may want to use the FREE BackpackGearTest Report Writer. Check it out.

You should remember that this review is very basic, and
should not be considered a fill-in-the-blank template. While most
reports follow a fairly standard outline, there is no template that you
are required to use. Some people do create their own templates, and
you can create your own if you like. Your review should be unique
and reflect your own personal style. You should try to write reviews and reports that you would like
to read. If you have trouble coming up with your own style, read
some of the reviews and reports already on BackpackGearTest.org for
inspiration.

There are just a few rules and minimum
standards you should be aware of before we begin. While this may
seem daunting, don't let it turn you away. If you take it step by
step, it is very logical and easy to do. If you graduated the third
grade, you aren't going to have any trouble. If you ever get stuck,
help is available.

If you are not interested in following this outline explicitly, do not bother wasting the time of our editors and forget about applying. We are looking for people that are serious.

Field information
a. Location or locations where the test was conducted
b. Description of location (geography, terrain, elevation, etc.)
c. Weather conditions (temperature, precipitation, etc.)
d. Short, comprehensive description of your trip or trips while
testing the item, including how the item performed on the trip, or in
the case of multiple trips, on each trip.

Summary

Remember, this outline is very basic, and while you should
generally follow it, it is by no means all-inclusive. The body of the report may include any additional factual information
you are able to provide about the item being tested. This will often be
dependent on the item being tested. A cook pot, for instance, has
volume, but a hiking pole does not. You may also
include your opinions about a piece of gear. If you had expectations
from company advertising or word of mouth, you should report
whether or not the item lives up to expectations and why or why not.
This is where it's important to 'think like a tester'. If you were
thinking about buying this item, what would you want to know about it in
order to determine if it is right for you? Don't just quote the
product description and hype on the packaging. We aren't very
interested in product claims; we are interested in how the product worked
for you under actual trail conditions.

Your review is NOT required to be positive. Reviews of poorly
performing or designed gear are just as important as reviews of
outstanding gear. Outdoorsy people sometimes depend on their gear for
their very lives, and everyone needs to know if a piece of gear does not
perform adequately. All statements you make, whether positive or negative
should be supported with details. If an item breaks or fails, for
instance, you should state the circumstances and causes of the breakage or
failure. If an item performs better than expected, give specific
examples of its performance. To balance your report, consider both
the positives and the negatives as you write your report. Try to come up with at least three things you really like about the
gear. Even if the item does not work out the way you expected, does it
have features that you like? Conversely, try to come up with at least
three things that you do not like about the gear. These could be
features you hate, you merely find annoying, or even just ways that you
think the gear could be improved. Don't be afraid to
nit-pick. Some people include these positives and negatives in the
summary section of their reviews.

Sometimes a piece of gear IS almost perfect, but you
should again 'think like a tester'. You should consider how an
item might perform under different circumstances. If you are
testing wire tent stakes in rocky ground for instance, they will
probably work well. You should also think, however, how these
wire stakes would perform in sandy or soft soils - which is probably
not well. So try it out in soft soil and then report on how it
did. Remember that something that may be obvious to you may not be
obvious to someone else. But please avoid guessing how the stakes would
do in sandy soil. That kind of "projection" is not nearly as useful as
reporting on what really does happen when you are using the gear while
backpacking.

Remember to review the gear, not the retailer. Except in cases where the retailer
is the manufacturer, or the retailer plays a major role in the
acquisition of the item such as when a footbed needs custom fitting, the
item should be reviewed, not your experience with the retailer. The
majority of the people reading your review will not be going to the same
place you went to get your gear. You may include the
Manufacturer's suggested retail price in your review, if applicable.
If you bought the item on sale, the sale price isn't going to be useful in
most cases.

If you had contact with the manufacturer, please describe that
contact and whether it was a positive or negative experience. If you had
problems with the manufacturer, tell us about your experience. Tell us
when you contacted them, who you spoke with, and what was said by both
parties. We are interested both in companies that stand behind their
gear and those that do not. If a manufacturer went that extra mile for
you, tell us about it. If they refused to back their product we want to
know that too. You will probably be asked by the people on this list to
back up your claims so be ready to do so.

If you have an improvement to the product to propose or a problem
with it that needs solving, give details as to what and why.
Manufactures often read the reports, and some have made changes to their
products based on suggestions found in owner reviews and test
reports. You DO have a voice.

If you have images to share, there are guidelines for
that too, and we'll cover that later. Lastly, common courtesy is required at all times. Reports with inappropriate
comments or images will be deleted and the author of such a report will be banned
from the group. This is a 'family' group, and you should use
common sense.

As a final note, you report doesn't have to be
boring. A report that is both easy and fun to read is much
more desirable than one that just gives a bunch of statistics and then
says whether or not you liked the item.

Product tested and reviewed in each Formal Test Report has been provided free of charge by the manufacturer to BackpackGearTest.org. Upon completion of the Test Series the writer is permitted to keep the product. Owner Reviews are based on product owned by the reviewer personally unless otherwise noted.